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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29038758">we chose violence (and we do it well)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spymastery/pseuds/spymastery'>spymastery</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Lovers, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:13:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29038758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spymastery/pseuds/spymastery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I've learned a few things since my accounts were iced and my partner was killed.” Tragedy didn't even taste strange anymore when she spoke about what happened. They were just sounds, letters, words. “I can't just have one trick anymore.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sandayu Oda/Female V, Sandayu Oda/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>we chose violence (and we do it well)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He's... he's alive.” <br/><br/>The room was massive and empty of everything but sound and light and tech. Cheering inspired by the beautiful shimmer of color from the dashi parade bounced off of every wall. Music bled through the cement beneath the thick soles of her boots, and the elegant vibrato of a woman's voice echoed between her ears, forcing the strength from her breathless murmur. Shards of confetti rained down from the sky like snow.</p>
<p>Yards away, an Arasaka Netrunner sat on their knees, shoulders sagging forward with the weight of the helmet they wore. The trap had been set for her with extremely talented bait, but Arasaka only played with the highest of stakes.</p>
<p>A neon orange koi swam between the buildings, like a heart leaping from one beat to another. Her own was still racing from the fight, her skin giving off the slightest bit of static.</p>
<p>And beneath her, Oda lay flat on his back, legs folded awkwardly and mantis blades primed to do what mantis blades often did. The glow of his flickering oni mask coated the soft line of her jaw in red and illuminated the augments in her eyes.</p>
<p>“It is foolish to thank you.” Takemura's voice joined in on the song, the low and raspy tone adding warmth where there had been only beauty moments before. “Still, I appreciate what you have done.”</p>
<p>“You want to talk about foolish?”</p>
<p>Victoria bent at the waist. The short nail of her forefinger dragged over the underside of Oda's mask before she pressed it sharply upward to reveal a sweat-stained face. His thin lips parted in a grimace, but his eyes barely opened. They shifted beneath his eyelids, nothing more.</p>
<p>“I don't want to leave him here,” she said slowly, picking over her words as if she only half-believed them. “Any advice?”</p>
<p>Takemura made a thoughtful noise that was just loud enough to be picked up on the holo.</p>
<p>“If you resuscitate him, he may be combative.” It was what Victoria expected. The mentor knew the protege well, almost well enough to predict his next steps. She should have gotten up, but she didn't. Not even when her partner's advice continued with a warning. “You were victorious against him once, V. The chance that you will not succeed again is yours to take. Remember that we have work to do.”</p>
<p>She withdrew one of the MaxDoc MK.3 inhalers from a pouch on her belt and pushed the mouthpiece between his lips, pressed her thumb down on the canister, and pinched his nose.</p>
<p>Oda sucked in a breath. An anxious power surged through his body. His back arched up off of the ground with enough strength and speed to knock over someone lighter. But Victoria wasn't a waif, and her reflexes were top of the line. Her knee slammed down into his sternum. She shifted her hips forward, pinning him by the shoulders to the hard ground beneath him.</p>
<p>“Stop!”</p>
<p>His helmet rolled away as his struggling stopped, as consideration overtook his pale white-blue eyes instead of quickly oscillating panic and fury.</p>
<p>Oda's lips parted again. His eyes rolled back, flicking upward as he turned his head in the direction of the Netrunner. He licked over his bottom lip before biting on it as she lowered more of her weight down onto his chest. Once he managed to suck in a breath, he found his voice, huskier than she remembered between the MaxDoc and half of her two-sixty on his chest. “Should you not be plugged in?”</p>
<p>“I should be.”</p>
<p>“Then... why are you not?”</p>
<p>The impulse to punch him trickled down her arm and into her fingers. She curled them, watching as a certain amount of realization shone in his eyes. He just had one of those faces – cold, sharp-boned, beautiful, like every other man and woman worth anything at Arasaka. Takemura had such a face. Arthur Jenkins. Hanako Arasaka. Meredith Stout. It was just how they made them.</p>
<p>She was an exception, if only just. Her power was what won her the ability to other herself, and she relished it. It also gave her an upper hand in fights like this.</p>
<p>Struggles like this.</p>
<p>“Why am I not abandoning you, prone and unconscious, in some abandoned Night City megablock?” Victoria's head drifted sideways in a curious tilt. “I've been asking myself the same thing.”</p>
<p>Oda grimaced again.</p>
<p>“Could it... have been a request?”</p>
<p>Victoria laughed. She tossed the MaxDoc inhaler aside and found something else to hold onto. Her grip curled just beneath his jaw, stilling the movement of his head and forced him to suck in a deeper breath to grab at the air he required.</p>
<p>“Yes. Your old mentor asked me to keep you alive,” she murmured, her thumb pressing into the sharp curve of Oda's narrow chin. “But... I don't think he expected me to.”</p>
<p>The woman's song grew louder and louder as a float carrying one of many speakers passed overhead. A melody was only a melody when your ears didn't feel as if they were bleeding. A wrinkle pinched between Victoria's brows, and Oda watched her, mouth open with every labored breath he took beneath her weight and the pinch of her hand.</p>
<p>Her grip eased, if only enough to keep him from passing out.</p>
<p>“You barely touched me.” She continued quietly, her eyes giving off a faint glow as she scanned his vitals. Increased cortisol and heart rate, slightly elevated temperature. Nothing stood out as worrying; he would survive without any extra effort on her part. But she stayed put. “Maybe you didn't want to kill me, either.”</p>
<p>Oda tilted his head back. The high neck of his armor tugged against his throat, and he bared his teeth, a flash of white in the almost darkness.</p>
<p>“Your fighting style has changed since your contract was terminated,” he explained. He was a turtle on his back with no reason to mask the truth. Whatever power could possibly be passed between them lay entirely in her hands. “Whatever files Hanako-sama shared with me in preparation were incorrect.”</p>
<p>The grin she gave him spread across her face like a shot.</p>
<p>Oda let go of a huff of a laugh, looking away with a roll of his eyes and an unafraid murmur of, “<em>Kowai</em>...”</p>
<p>Scary.</p>
<p>It wasn't the first time she'd heard that. Hell, it wasn't even the first time she heard that with her knee pressed to a man's chest. He didn't sound threatened, or worried, or concerned. He sounded intrigued. Looked it, too, beneath his arched brows and between the enticing curl of his lips. There wasn't much more attractive than a danger who was willing to be extinguished.</p>
<p>“I've learned a few things since my accounts were iced and my partner was killed.” Tragedy didn't even taste strange anymore when she spoke about what happened. They were just sounds, letters, words. “I can't just have one trick anymore.”<br/><br/>Victoria drew back, careful to move out of range of his mantis blades even with the noticeably shift in dynamic between them. He stood on his own once she removed the weight keeping him pinned. His feet planted on the ground, Oda swayed only a little. The inhaler was top of the line; he was fine.</p>
<p>
  <em>Maybe I should've given him something mediocre.</em>
</p>
<p>“So, you chose violence.”</p>
<p>Cloaked in both shadow and light, Victoria couldn't catch the minute details of Oda's face save for his pale eyes. Instead, she watched his body shift in the flurry of color-changing lights from the dashi parade. Gold caught the damp locks of his hair. Blue, the broad curve of his shoulders. He rooted himself more firmly to the ground, and beams of blue caught the seals of his boots.</p>
<p>But he could see everything. At this angle, she knew he could.</p>
<p>“No, I chose tech instead of intelligence,” Victoria bit back, her upper lip caught on her frustration as she spat it out. “I chose violence the day I accepted an internship at Arasaka, and I never doubted myself for one – single – moment.”</p>
<p>Her lips parted to continue, but as she did, she heard the activation blip of her holo in her ear. She swallowed back what she intended to say, but never took her eyes off of Oda. A gulf of concrete separated them – a gulf of dusty, poorly kept concrete, a pool of color that shimmered like light on water, and a void of understanding.</p>
<p>“Is Oda still alive, V?”</p>
<p>“I believe he's in better shape now than he was before I gave him a jolt.”</p>
<p>She could practically hear Oda's jaw tense, just as Takemura let go of a weary-sounding sigh. “Victoria,” the latter murmured, his voice somehow full of both approval and disapproval. “Your decision may have—”</p>
<p>She sighed. Shrugged. Stood a little straighter.</p>
<p>“Destroyed everything. I know.”</p>
<p>Oda stepped forward. Victoria responded by doing the same, her soft chin tilted upwards and her eyes glowing white. It was like someone cocking a gun or squeezing the end of a bat, like an Arasaka-trained assassin unsheathing his mantis blades.<br/><br/>Not that Oda acted. He only stepped forward again.</p>
<p>In her ear, she heard Takemura again, his voice fraught with tension. “... Speak to him, and I will speak to Hanako-sama.”</p>
<p>The call ended.</p>
<p>A calm fell over Oda's expression. It bled into his voice.</p>
<p>“Takemura-san taught me many important lessons during my training. Words I did not know before he spoke them – honor, understanding, patience.” The song echoing through the streets of Japantown slowed to a momentary stop, leaving only cheering and the soundless flutter of confetti to contend with their conversation. “Justice, even for something that has yet to come to pass.”</p>
<p>Victoria's heart sank.</p>
<p>He wasn't done. His face was shrouded in shadow, but she could hear the promise of it in his voice. She could see a flicker of tension in his fingers.</p>
<p>She stuck a hand out between them.</p>
<p>“We aren't going to <em>kill </em>her, Oda.” Confidence ran through Victoria's words like iron. The skin around her eyes went tense, her full lips pulling at the corners. “That was never our intention. Takemura will speak to her, and I have been ensuring that such a thing is possible. That's it.”</p>
<p>“Talk,” Oda echoed, mouthing the word like a loose tooth.</p>
<p>Victoria nodded. “Talk.”</p>
<p>The moment stretched out between them, even as Oda continued moving forward, even as the yards of distance turned to feet and feet turned to inches.</p>
<p>In the distance, another song began and just as melancholic and beautiful as the one before. The koi shifted from orange and blue to purple and red as a multi-storied float passed between the buildings. Light glimmered off of the golden scrolls and black lacquered accents and red and white curtains that spilled over the sides. The projected fish and the ads that glowed on every surface in Japantown painted everything in a spray of rainbow.</p>
<p>For a moment, Victoria wondered if Oda would have enjoyed the parade if she hadn't made such an excellent distraction. She would have spent half the time gobsmacked; it wasn't something you saw every day.</p>
<p>“If any harm comes to Hanako-sama...”</p>
<p>Oda was close enough for her to feel his breath on her face. Though he was still shrouded in shadow from the lights on his back, she could make out his details through proximity alone – his pale eyes, the flare of his wide nostrils, his grimace, and the pained sweat still sitting at his hairline.</p>
<p>He took another step forward and into her space, the chest of his body armor pressing her a half-step backwards.</p>
<p>And then, she pushed right back – unwilling to give ground when she had him unconscious on the ground minutes before. She brought him back. She got him on his feet. He wasn't in control then, and he wouldn't take that control from her.</p>
<p>Victoria reached up between them. Her gloved fingers gripped the column of Oda's neck. All she got was a displeased flash of teeth.</p>
<p>He didn't fight back. He listened.</p>
<p>Maybe he'd learned that from Takemura, too. A useful lesson.</p>
<p>“Do you honestly think Goro wants to hurt her?” she asked. “We need to ask her some questions. Nothing more than that. You're the one making this into a situation.”</p>
<p>In the dark, she caught a glimpse of Oda's tongue sliding along the inside of his bottom lip.</p>
<p>“Goro,” he said. His voice was quiet, if taut around the edges. “How familiar.”</p>
<p>Victoria's brow furrowed. Her grip tensed enough to draw a shaky breath from Oda's throat before she eased it again. Only then did she catch the hand twisted into the fabric that bunched at her side, fingers turned to knots in her shirt, right beneath her lung.</p>
<p>If he wanted to kill her, he could. But she could kill him, too.</p>
<p>“Mm, maybe.” Victoria smiled, her tongue caught between her teeth. “... Sandayu.”</p>
<p>Oda's hands slipped against her soft belly as he pushed away with a sharp intake of breath. He moved in a prowling half-circle before turning back to her, his tapered fingers rubbing at his chin as their eyes met in the half-light. His pale blue ones were halfway shut, torn between suspicion and... something else.</p>
<p>A very familiar something else.</p>
<p>“I trusted you once,” he said. There was a promise primed in his throat; she could hear it as he spoke – a promise and an opportunity. “That was not a mistake. I hope that this will not be a mistake, either.”</p>
<p>Calm settled between them. For the first time in minutes, Victoria allowed herself a deep breath.</p>
<p>“I see giving you that boost wasn't a mistake, either.”</p>
<p>She didn't know if that was the full truth. She had no way of knowing where the path she was headed down would lead her. She only had the reality of the moment. She had one man's honor and his student's well-learned lessons, and she had what remained of her hope, that threadbare and tattered thing she kept close when she needed something ridiculous to hold onto.</p>
<p>Oda stared her down. Victoria stared back, unflinching.</p>
<p>And then, he stepped back and gestured towards the Netrunner still on her knees beneath the wall of screens.</p>
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